


Unique Anatomy

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Merry Gentry - Laurell K Hamilton
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Body Horror, Comeplay, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Tentacles, Warning: semi-dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:16:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PWP. Sholto/Rhys. Written for Kink Bingo 2013 for the 'guro' square: hence there are tentacles and body horror and comeplay that I tried to make fit the prompt as much as possible. Do not read if you're bothered by any of the above, or quasi-dub-con (consent requires negotiation here). I'm not quite sure when the fuck it's set except Merry's pregnant (and I totally forgot if Rhys got his eye back or not; he doesn't have it in this).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unique Anatomy

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Gentry characters belong to Laurell K. Hamilton and I am making no profit off this work of fan fiction. Beta-read by queerlyobscure, who proclaimed that it squicked her. My work here is done.

Rhys does not cower. Not for anyone. Not anymore. Not even if it would mean losing another eye, and he doesn’t exactly have a surfeit of those.

He feels a lot like doing it now, though. He’s not sure what’s got Sholto so worked up, but the King of the Sluagh is pacing the living area, fists rolled tightly at his sides, mouth a taut line.

Rhys doesn’t let his concern show on his face or in his voice as he asks, “Are you planning to wear a hole in the carpet?”

From the way Sholto jumps and looks at him it’s clear he hadn’t really realized that Rhys was even in the room. He lets out something that’s a cross between a sigh and a hiss and then slouches over to slump down on the couch beside Rhys, sinking into the white leather.

Then he says the absolute last thing Rhys would have expected: “I’m afraid.”

Rhys blinks at him. “ _You_? Afraid of _what_?”

“I fear that one day, in spite of all our care, we won’t be enough to keep our Merry safe.” A smile twists Sholto’s lips. “Surely that’s something you can empathize with.”

“Oh.” Rhys realizes he doesn’t know what to say next and, in lieu of words, reaches out and starts finger-combing Sholto’s hair. Sholto leans into his hand, his sidhe side showing more than ever at Rhys’s touch.

“Do you ever worry that someday we’ll be inadequate?”

“I never worry _I’ll_ be inadequate.” The words are out before he can bite them back, but Sholto just laughs, eyes sparkling gold.

“I’ve seen Merry after her times with you. I’m well aware of how you can serve in that department.”

“Yeah, well, as one of her other baby daddies I can only assume you’re similarly capable.”

They look at each other for a drawn-out moment, Rhys’s fingers still tangled in Sholto’s hair.

“ _Baby daddies_? Sholto says finally, with one eyebrow arching.

Rhys shrugs. “Fetus fathers?”

“No.”

“Doyle could be her puppy papa, I suppose...”

Sholto doesn’t say no this time but shuts Rhys’s mouth quite efficiently with his own. His lips feel like anyone else’s – well, maybe not quite like Merry’s; there’s a certain absence of lipstick and melting softness – but when he slips his tongue into Rhys’s mouth there’s an unique taste to it, like all of the sweat and fever of the Wild Hunt condensed down into intimate heat. It should be unpleasant but it isn’t. Sholto’s hand slips into his hair and Rhys finds himself kissing back, giving as good as he gets.

When they part they don’t go far, faces remaining inches apart.

“What,” Rhys says. He licks his lips and tries again. “What was that?”

“Curiosity,” Sholto says. “Besides which, it’s not our night with Merry.”

“And that makes it _our_ night together?”

“I’m well aware of your feelings on the issue of consent. That said, I would suggest you walk away now, or I may not be responsible for what happens if you don’t.” Sholto is breathing harder than one kiss should have made him, and his eyes are glowing.

“You don’t scare me,” Rhys says.

“Are you sure?”

He’s ready to make a bold reply, he really is, but Sholto closes the distance  between them and _bites_ his neck, stinging and sharp and for a second he’s not Sholto (who is comparatively safe), he’s a fanged goblin seeking blood, and Rhys pushes him away with a cry of fear.

Immediately, self-loathing hits him, and he knots his hands together in his lap, noticing as he does so that his whole body has turned toward Sholto as a white flower toward some pale sun.

Sholto’s hand at the nape of his neck steadies him. “Cry your pardon,” he murmurs, incredibly. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No biting. No biting, and no illusions. If we’re going to do this we do this without hiding anything.” Rhys reaches up and pulls his eye patch off, dropping it onto the coffee table.

Sholto leans in and presses a kiss to the skin just below Rhys’s missing eye, and then his torso bulges, his shirt pressing outward as his body reshapes beneath it. Rhys doesn’t want to look but he can’t look away. He catches a glimpse of what’s beneath the shirt in the gap between two buttons and realizes that maybe he’s not okay with being totally open about this after all. Entirely apart from the fact that this is _Sholto_ and really, there are worse things than going a few nights without sex.

But then Sholto’s mouth claims his again and Sholto’s hand is on his thigh, palm sliding over the leather, and Rhys forgets why he’s objecting. He kisses back and returns his hand to Sholto’s hair, the two of them silently wrestling for dominance.

Rhys ends up pinned to the couch, flat on his back, Sholto atop him. He can feel the appendages writhing against his lower stomach and there’s nowhere to recoil from them. Sholto’s shirt is hanging open to mid-chest; Rhys dimly remembers unbuttoning it.

“Where exactly were you planning on this going?” he asks as casually as he can considering that Sholto’s hands are on his shoulders and yet there’s still something flicking at his nipple.

Sholto’s eyes are still glowing but beyond that they’re unreadable; not that the glowing isn’t a message in and of itself. “You’re going to touch me.”

Rhys lifts his hands briefly from Sholto’s back and drums his fingers along Sholto’s spine. “I’m already touching you.”

“Not there.”

It requires a deep breath before he can let one hand move down Sholto’s side to then seek out and open the last of his shirt buttons. Sholto obligingly moves back off him enough to let him do it but not enough to let him get up. And Rhys has just enough curiosity of his own to not want to get up, not at the moment at any rate.

_If Merry can do it, so can I_ , the thinks, and it’s like a dare to himself, which makes sense because they’re already playing the truth part of the game.

With that thought in mind, he pushes Sholto’s shirt aside and just looks.

The tentacles are as pale as the rest of Sholto’s skin. They move independently, reaching out to Rhys as though drawn by his gaze. They’re a mixture of thick and thin; the thinnest move like seaweed underwater, while the thickest seem more like lengthy hyperflexible cocks, to be completely uncouth. His hand goes to one of these first and Sholto closes his eyes when he strokes it, just a fingertip’s touch. Emboldened, Rhys uses the palm of his hand next, and Sholto shudders, but clearly out of pleasure. There’s a small depression near the tip and Rhys dips his finger into it, and then yanks his hand back when his finger gets _sucked_.

“That was a surprise.”

Sholto’s eyes are half-lidded. “Forgive me if I fail to apologize for my unique anatomy.”

Rhys reaches out again and this time teases one of the smaller tendrils, and Sholto bites back a gasp. The tendril winds around Rhys’s finger and he feels that same sucking sensation, and it’s enough to make him wonder what it would be like to have his cock in amongst all those fine feelers. The thought simultaneously repulses and excites him.

Sholto reaches out – _not_ with his hand – and begins unbuttoning Rhys’s shirt. Rhys looks down and Sholto smiles. It’s a hard smile. “Feel free to voice your objections at any point. I will not have it said that I disdained proper negotiation.”

“I have no objections,” Rhys says, and it comes out more like a whisper than he’d intended as that one tentacle finishes with his buttons and slips inside his shirt to suck at one nipple. Whatever complaints his mind might have to make are being irrevocably overridden by his body, which apparently doesn’t mind what’s being done to it as long as it’s pleasurable.

Either the long years with Andais have fucked him up beyond repair, or Merry really has taught him that the form doesn’t matter as long as the desire is genuine. Granted, her form makes the desire a hundred percent genuine at all times, but nonetheless, it’s not that he doesn’t want to try this, it’s that he doesn’t know how to convince his entire brain that it does as well.

A burst of raucous laughter from one of the nearby rooms – he thinks maybe the kitchen – startles him, and he jerks away from Sholto. And Sholto lets him go, lets him get as far away as the end of the couch, before his senses return to him and he stops moving.

“They’re having fun,” Sholto says. He gestures languidly – again, not with his hand. “So are we.”

Rhys sighs at himself and lets Sholto reel him back in. It isn’t long before Sholto’s unbuttoning the leather pants Rhys still habitually wears, stripping them down his legs. He’s using his hands for the moment, but Rhys has the definite feeling that that won’t remain the case.

Sure enough, as soon as his pants are off, Sholto is touching him with everything he’s got. The only thing he’s not using is his mouth and Rhys is pretty sure he’d be using that as well if his flexibility permitted it. The tentacles are stroking his stomach and his thighs; Sholto’s hands are on his hips, pressing lightly down, as though he still expects Rhys to try to escape.

“Are you sure you’re not sidhe-struck?” he asks, trying to sound as though there’s not still part of his brain screaming in terror at the thought of those tendrils wriggling against his cock.

“I can’t honestly say that the thought hasn’t occurred to me,” Sholto answers, and then that fringe of the most delicate finger-fronds is on Rhys’s cock and balls, stroking fine cool stripes over his heated skin, and the time for banter has passed. Rhys digs his fingernails into the smooth leather of the couch and makes a jerky movement with his hips that’s a cross between arching up into the touch and shrinking away from it.

Then the sucking starts. Quick and light and everywhere and he can’t – he closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again, because as much as he doesn’t want to watch this there’s a certain repellent fascination for him in the way that Sholto’s – flesh – plays against his.

“It’s socially acceptable for you to kiss me if you don’t want to look,” Sholto says with more than a hint of a laugh in his voice, and Rhys falls into his mouth without a qualm, eyes closing again. Sholto’s lips are strong and sure against his and he finds himself making soft noises into Sholto’s mouth as Sholto plays him like a piano.

When he comes he feels the nest of tentacles stiffen around him and there’s this _sound_ , a visceral sucking sound that almost arrests his orgasm midway. But he’s too far gone to really care, clinging on to Sholto’s shoulders and slipping his tongue against Sholto’s so that he doesn’t cry out and alert the others.

He falls back, breathing heavily, expecting to see a mess all over Sholto’s – all over Sholto, anyway – and doesn’t. He raises an eyebrow at Sholto, who half-shrugs.

“The tips are semi-porous,” he says, and it’s more than enough explanation, especially given the sucking sound.

“That must be convenient for cleaning up,” Rhys says, keeping as straight a face as possible.

“Indeed.” Sholto sits back on his heels, giving Rhys room to breathe. Rhys does so for a minute before moving to kneel up and bring himself face to face with Sholto once more.

“That takes care of me. What about you?”

“I had no idea Cromm Cruach was so considerate,” Sholto says dryly. He twirls one finger in the air and it takes Rhys a second to realize that Sholto wants him to turn around. Turn around, and, when Sholto’s hand lands on the back of his neck and pushes, bend over the arm of the couch. He balks at this and Sholto lifts his hand away.

“I’m not used to this,” Rhys says.

“Then go. I have hands and I’m allowed to use them. I have not had centuries of conditioning telling me otherwise.”

Rhys growls and settles himself, feeling terribly exposed as he shifts his knees apart, spreading his legs wider. “I can take whatever you dish out, nightflyer.”

Sholto leans over him and kisses the side of his throat, his teeth scraping Rhys’s skin very lightly. “Is that so?”

Rhys can feel the cool of the tentacles pressing against his lower back and the heat of Sholto’s cock pressing against his ass, and he does the only thing he reasonably can under the circumstances: turns his head and pokes his tongue out.

“You...” Sholto seems at a loss for words.

“Bring it on,” says Rhys.

Those three words are apparently enough. Sholto moves back and his hands land back on Rhys’s hips. Rhys feels the cool press of something at his entrance and holds himself very still as it quests, touches, delves. When it sucks he voices a hoarse cry, and immediately bites his lip, but nobody comes running.

“I suspect they’re otherwise engaged,” Sholto murmurs, and sure enough the quality of the noises from the other room has changed. Not that Rhys has much attention to spare for anyone other than the man behind him.

Something slick and wet oozes over him and he jumps a little, and then forces himself to stay still.

“Lubricant?” he whispers. “I didn’t know you carried.”

“I don’t.”

Rhys thinks about the word _semi-porous_ , thinks about the sucking noise, and it isn’t hard to put the pieces together from there. It feels dirty and wrong at the same time as it feels – somehow – sensible and right. It’s just another unique bit of anatomy, and it’s his own come, just – relocated. That’s all.

Nonetheless, he has to hold tight to the arm of the couch not to jump up and run.

“I haven’t had occasion to do this in a long while. Our Merry prepares the way quite adequately herself,” Sholto says with a low laugh.

Rhys can’t respond, tightening his grip on the arm of the couch and making a guttural noise deep in the back of his throat. He’s biting his lip; he doesn’t feel ashamed of this, not really, but at the same time he doesn’t particularly want an audience and he knows that crying out would instantly bring a number of the others on the run. Probably with guns or swords drawn, and for what? Him and Sholto engaging in a little playtime on the couch.

Belatedly the thought comes to him that Merry never opens _this_ particular way to anyone, but it’s too late for a snappy comeback, and besides, the way Sholto’s working him open prevents speech.

He feels just the tip of one of the tentacles push past his entrance and has time to think that it’s got to be one of the smaller ones, the bigger ones couldn’t possibly fit so soon, and then it’s joined by a second like two thick fingers and he stops thinking altogether. Glancing back over his shoulder again, he sees Sholto looking down, apparently mesmerized by the sight of his appendages disappearing into Rhys’s body. His hands are still on Rhys’s hips, and why should he dirty them when he has other parts that can do all the dirty work?

Stretching. Stretched. He’s open and ready, and his cock is stirring to life again, even if his mind is protesting a little. What little he knows of this style of sex comes from being Andais’s plaything for so long; she was not nearly so careful as Sholto.

Who is actually holding him open, two of the middle-sized tentacles pulling him wide, as his cock presses forward and in. It’s much too much and not enough all at once, and Rhys feels his face flush as he realizes that he’s pressing back against Sholto, trying to take him in all at once.

“Be still,” Sholto murmurs, “almost there,” and then he’s all the way in, his balls rubbing against Rhys’s, and Rhys simply cannot hold back the cry that escapes his lips.

Nobody comes to investigate, however, and Rhys is torn between going and telling them off for their lack of attention to strange noises, and staying put.

The choice isn’t all that difficult, really.

Sholto moves in him slowly at first and then, as Rhys grows accustomed to what he’s doing, picks up the pace a little. The feelers that were holding him open have gone but he can feel them – and the others – writhing against his lower back. He suspects Sholto is leaning over him deliberately, testing his ability to not call a halt to this.

He won’t; he can’t.

Sholto’s breathing is heavy in his ear, and he can hear his own name, both his current name and his god-name, mixed in with the breaths. Blindly he reaches back with one hand, the other still steadying himself against the arm of the couch, seeking and finding one of the longer, thicker tentacles. He teases the tip with his fingers, letting it suck at him, and Sholto’s breathing roughens.

“Is that good?”

“Your acceptance is,” Sholto says. He sneaks one hand down under Rhys’s body, wrapping it around his hard-again cock, and Rhys is caught between Sholto’s cock and his hand and he knows he’s going to come again. Not immediately, but soon enough.

It’s Sholto who comes first, though, tentacles going stiff against Rhys’s back, spilling himself with a series of rougher, deeper thrusts that make Rhys feel like he’s being torn apart. He pumps Rhys’s cock hard and fast, and that combined with his last few movements before he slips out of Rhys’s ass sets Rhys off again. This time he has the presence of mind to bite down on his lip, stifling the sound that wants to come out. He tastes the metal of blood and for a moment red stars dance before his eyes, even the one that isn’t there anymore.

Sholto pulls back off him and Rhys feels a couple of tentacle tips dance over him, cleaning him up. He lets it happen, thinking _semi-porous_ , thinking nothing much else at all. He has enough presence of mind to get up and let Sholto clean the couch as well; the last thing they need is stained leather.

He pulls his pants back on, wrestling the leather over slightly sweaty skin, and has his shirt halfway on before Sholto pulls him down to sit back on the couch. One of the tentacles lifts to Rhys’s face and he has time to realize that his lip is still bleeding before the sucker clamps on and the little rill of blood vanishes with a soft slurp.

“Are you sure you’re not part goblin?”

Sholto raises one shoulder in that half-shrug again. “If I were I would take your whole lip for that,” he says in a dangerously soft voice, and the tentacle battens on agonizingly hard for a second before retreating.

Rhys considers apologizing but it would sound stupid. Instead he finishes buttoning his shirt, and then starts running his fingers through his hair, straightening it out before he replaces his eye patch. Sholto stands up, drags his pants on, and settles the nest of tentacles as flat as possible before donning his shirt. A moment later and his illusion settles into place.

It’s as if nothing ever happened, except for the way Rhys’s ass still feels slick and used, and his cock is well and truly done for the night. Sholto’s no fertility deity to bring him back with a single touch and he’s relieved. He’s not sure he could go through that again so soon.

On the other hand, he’s not averse to the idea of another time, some time.


End file.
